New BrewPi release available! Update now!

By Elco Jacobs | October 24, 2013

Hi Brewers!

It has been too long since our last release, but this is a good one! We added a few scripts to help you install and update BrewPi, which should make the whole release process a lot easier in the future.

Integrated temperature profile dialog

The biggest change in this release is that we got rid of Google docs for the temperature profiles. The Google doc profile was an ugly relic from the very first version from 2012. It is now replaced by a much nicer interface, right in the web interface.

Brian Schwinn contributed most of the code for this new interface, and we worked toghether to add previews, automatic sorting by date, start/insert now buttons, and much more. Just update and give it a go.

Install script

Getting your BrewPi up and running was a cumbersome process that required you to enter lots of commands in the linux terminal. Geo van O. worked with me to create an install script that does most of the work for you: installing packages, creating user accounts, cloning the repositories from GitHub, setting up a CRON job, etc.

You can now just clone the brewpi-tools repository, run the installer and answer a few questions. After that, you can go straight to programming the Arduino and setting up devices. You can also use the installer for a clean reinstall.

New install instructions here

Update script

Updating BrewPi was also a daunting process for most users: working with command line git can be quite complex. Geo and I wrote a python script to help you do it.

The updater will check your repositories and compare them with their remotes. If an update has been found, it will ask you to apply it. It can also stash changes for you on a merge conflict. If you prefer working with your own fork on GitHub, no problem. If you have configured multiple remotes the updater will ask you which to use. So even for git veterans, this can be a handy tool.

After pulling updates, the updater will run scripts from your brewpi-scripts repo to fix file permissions, install any new dependencies and update the CRON job to the newest format.

After running the updater, don’t forget to upload a new hex file to your Arduino too.

Update instructions here

Start, stop and pause data logging

You can now click on the beer name to display a menu to:

Stop the current brew. This sets the active brew to None and stops data logging.
Start a new brew. Stops the current brew and starts a new one.
Pause/continue data logging. Need to fiddle with your sensors? You can now temporarily stop logging, so you graph won’t get an ugly spike.

Temperate control algorithm tweaks to reduce overshoot

A few users with fast fridges reported temperature overshoots or quick cycling between heating and cooling. I have modified the temperature algorithm and reduced the aggressiveness of the default PID paramters to reduce this. See the changelog for the full list of changes.